Adam Gase takes issue with perception of Jay Cutler

Posted by Mike Florio on May 5, 2017, 10:25 PM EST

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Before becoming coach of the Dolphins, Adam Gase spent a year in Chicago as the offensive coordinator of the Bears. He worked with Jay Cutler. Which gives Gase a unique perspective regarding the now-former Bears quarterback.

“I guess I know a different guy than what everybody else portrays,” Gase told reporters on Friday. “I think a lot of things that have been said about him in the past have really been [BS].”

Gase added that, when working with the quarterback in Chicago, Gase wouldn’t have been surprised to see Cutler become a game analyst for a major network. As to whether Gase is surprised that Cutler didn’t find another team after being cut by the Bears, Gase opted not to answer.

“I don’t want to speak for him,” Gase said. “I really don’t know all the situation with what happened with him.”

What happened was no one was interested in signing him to be the starter. And so Cutler has moved on, taking a job few expected him to ever want.

Interesting that Jay Cutler has been so successful in hiding his true personality for the past 11 years and he’s really a warm, happy and friendly guy who just put on an act of being a total prick. Who knew?

I can’t figure why the last couple of years everyone in the country agreed that Cutler was one of the most hated guys in the league. Now he’s going to be on TV every week? I don’t get it. All you have to do is ask the fans of Chicago. Jay is who Jay is.

He was a Pro Bowl player for Shanahan. Had diabetes and lost 27 pounds and never missed a practice or game. Sacked 12 times with over 600 throws in his Pro Bowl year. Gase and Shanahan love the guy. Different career if he stayed in Denver!

One of his friends from Indiana let it slip a few months ago that Cutler had been prepping for this gig for years. He said Cutler had hired speech coaches, installed a video studio or leased one in Nashville with satellite facilities for auditions to practice ‘live fire’ broadcasts. Someone else ratted him out as well, so I don’t think this was a big secret. I think last year Variety had a blip on him hiring an agent for actors. I’m going to bet he does very well, that he will exceed expectations and last a few seasons before his general work ethic reappears. One of the more enduring knocks on him was his lack of skill reading defenses or expanding plays. So, outside of some unknown charm, it’s anyone’s guess what he’ll actually bring to the game. Probably just to torture fans they’ll assign him to cover the Bears.

Cutler on a better team is Eli Manning or Tony Romo. He is now orders of magnitude better than anyone the Bills, Jets, 49ers, Rams, Texans, or Browns have on their roster. His ideal situation would have been if Washington traded Cousins to SF for 2018 picks then brought in Cutler to serve as a bridge to a QB the Redskins would have traded up to draft next year. He is certainly not the first QB who failed to reach his potential in large part due to being on crappy teams.

People think of Cutler as like Josh McCown but with a bad attitude. But that rep is due to not performing well in high profile games. But if you watched the Bears plays week in and week out, Cutler was a lot better than that.

I think of him as similar to Eli Manning or Romo. But with a bad attitude. I would describe all of those guys as guys with big arms who mostly played well, but were also given to throwing interceptions. The caveat is that Cutler had a little Andy Dalton in him and he didn’t perform well in big games with the exception of that MNF game against Minnesota last year.

These Cutler apologists need to really watch football as they have no idea what they are talking about. Cutler has never won anywhere he has been (college,pro). All they say is that aww he has diabetes, he has bad coaching, he has bad receivers, the playbook sucks, his line stinks! Whatever. No teammates have spoken up for him, even brandon Marshall refused to endorse him after this season. The guy wants the money without responsibility. He’s been able to stay in the league because he, like Sam Bradford, have good agents who fleece teams and somehow get them paid. The only way cutler wouldn’t ever have a chance at being successful, is to be put in a team with supreme talent like Dallas or Seattle and he asked to manage games. That’s a pretty expensive placeholder.